322 CAPPED HOCK. 
thrown out of use Nature allows the skin to enlarge. The cap of a hock, 
originally, was a bursa. A bursa is a little bladder or round sac, formed 
of the finest possible membrane, and filled with a fluid similar to joint 
oil: Its use is to facilitate motion; hence it eases the tightened skin 
over the points of the bony hock. But when it becomes deranged and 
swollen, the skin, which was dense, hard, and solid, stretches so as to 
cover the increase of bulk. 
The tumor, however, having been produced, may in time subside, should 
the injury which provoked it not be repeated. Too often, however, the 
cause springs from motives over which the animal has no control; and 
the violence being renewed again and again, the swelling enlarges, and 
that which was soft and pulpy at first becomes hard to the feel, while all 
CAPPED HOCK. THE LARGEST SPECIMEN OF CAPPED HOCK WHICH 
THE AUTHOR HAS MET WITH. 
sensation of fluid disappears. The provocative being repeated, the part 
first grows firm, then solid, while its bulk also enlarges to a fearful mag- 
nitude. There appears to be no limit to the size; but the largest the 
author has encountered was nineteen inches in its greatest circumference, 
and seriously interfered with progression. Above, on the right hand, is 
a portrait of the tumor. 
These unsightly growths have two causes—the ignorance of the groom 
and the timidity of the animal. To speak of the last first: Dogs will 
dream; often, as they lie before the fire, théy work their legs and utter 
suppressed noises, being at the time soundly asleep. Dogs also have 
imagination. Almost everybody must have remarked the dog slink away 
from some object which is to be indistinctly seen in the dusk of evening. 
Nobody, however, seems to have credited the horse with either of these 
faculties. Because it is of service to man, it is appropriated, and the 
attributes belonging to the creature are overlooked; the groom locks 
the stable door, and, having bedded the horses down, leaves them in the 
dark, “comfortable” for the night. One dreams—awakens in terror, 
similar to that which causes children to start out of their sleep with 
terrible crying. The hind legs are the means of defense with the horse; 
it has no other, for it seldom, and not habitually, employs its teeth. The 
animal, in alarm, begins kicking, for terror becomes powerful as the 
